The lighthouse lamp dies.
Fog creeps into each synapse,
hiding the true path.
Tag: craft
Novice
The meaning is there, but the words?
The words are clumsy, jumbled
but stuffed into eloquent costumes that serve to flower it all,
when what’s actually needed
is a good scrub and a scrawl that matches the hand.
Notes on crafting
I can inspect my patterns, carve them neat,
counter each edge with a curve, shaping out
the chase line of a puzzle piece.
Practice bites down the cold, ice melting from overload.
Magic nails ideas to the walls.
We are writers
We can tell the story any way we like:
add details,
remove details,
embellish, embolden,
build anticipation or slather on despair.
Confuse affection with love and love with affection,
claim no heart
and a heart big enough for them all.
We are writers,
we tell what we will,
the beginning and end may always be the same
but the middle is ours
to divine.
Vanishing Time
It can overtake you, if you’re not careful.
That little bug, that tightly sealed jar that cracks with every move
and is just waiting for a chance to burst open
and flood the carpet with alphabet shapes that form words,
sentences, scenes, chapters,
faster than you can say, ‘I’ll just get in five minutes’ work before bed.’
Oh, what a lie. A page full of typed lies
that keep you from realising the time until
the strikes of midnight–no, I stand corrected–two in the morning.
Thank you brain, for that mad dash of creativity.
No, I mean it.
The pages would be crisp and white forever without you.
Refined
The first line.
That’s all it can take. A statement.
Sometimes bold, sometimes not.
It is exactly what it needs to be.
It can grasp you, choke hold,
demanding to know who you are and why you’re reading it.
It can take your hand and guide you through.
It can push you, head-first, into another universe.
It can offer you a roll of the dice,
or a look into the mirror,
a table at the feast.
Leave you cold. Leave you warm. Leave you flustered.
Make you think you want to quit, then watch as you can’t bring yourself to.
Stamp itself into your mind. A tattoo you forget about
until you look over your shoulder.
Permanent.
An experience that will never vanish.
A box full of kindling
You start by cross-dressing,
trying out every hat
and pant-suit
you can lay your snatching hands on.
Taking a nip
here and there
without even knowing,
pollinating the dry wood
with a peppering of ideas
and choosing to tempt
Pandora with the wild taste
of the unwritten.
An input always needs an output;
you present the light-child
who carries it.
